I just changed the names of languages into their endonyms, and added couple of languages only to the future goal part, just for the heck of it because I didn't think I'll ever learn them, and some like Breton and Kurdish I find interesting but I doubt I'll learn them one day, but I'm not saying I won't.

Yeah but you've also got Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili and Turkish. I thought you were only interested in European languages.

My main interests are in European languages when it comes to history and culture, it is my heritage, my birthplace. For languages of other regions I am not interested in culture, just the languages themselves. Like Russian or Chinese, I dislike their culture and wouldn't want to live in their countries, but I do like their languages and wouldn't mind knowing them. It took me some time to realize I don't have to be fond of the civilization behind a language to learn it. In case of Russian, I like it on its own, I have no interest and even dislike for example Russian literature, like most people don't.

You can also notice I choose mostly the major world languages, or at least the bit international ones. Despite my localist attitude I am a cosmopolitan, it's part of my life philosophy, and I would like to communicate with people from across our homeworld.

I am having second thoughts about Hebrew. I would also add Korean. Unfortunately a signature can only be 255 characters long, and I already threw out all the commas.

Delodephius wrote:My main interests are in European languages when it comes to history and culture, it is my heritage, my birthplace.

Eh, Europe may be your birthplace but Hungarian and even Russian are no more part of your heritage than they are of mine.

I have no interest and even dislike for example Russian literature, like most people don't.

Really? Dostoyevsky is one of my favourite authors. That's part of why I'm interested in Russian (among many other reasons).

You can also notice I choose mostly the major world languages, or at least the bit international ones. Despite my localist attitude I am a cosmopolitan, it's part of my life philosophy, and I would like to communicate with people from across our homeworld.

I've always thought these categories were somewhat mutually exclusive. But if you say so.

Eh, Europe may be your birthplace but Hungarian and even Russian are no more part of your heritage than they are of mine.

My people (Slovaks) were under Hungarian rule for almost a millennium. The archives in our libraries are full of books in Hungarian that today no one can read. Hungarian is very much part of my heritage, believe me.Russian was a popular language during the communist era and most of my family learned it in school back then. I learned it in school too. It is also a Slavic language.

I've always thought these categories were somewhat mutually exclusive. But if you say so.

What's mutually exclusive?

Well, it's more useful than Sanskrit at least.

Depends on what you plan to do with it. Never call a language useless.

Delodephius wrote:My people (Slovaks) were under Hungarian rule for almost a millennium. The archives in our libraries are full of books in Hungarian that today no one can read. Hungarian is very much part of my heritage, believe me.Russian was a popular language during the communist era and most of my family learned it in school back then. I learned it in school too. It is also a Slavic language.

All right, as usual I'm wrong about the Balkans. But I would think most people wouldn't want to learn the language of a former oppressing power (see the rapid decline of Russian in popularity in many of the ex-Soviet countries).

What's mutually exclusive?

Being a localist and cosmopolitan.

Depends on what you plan to do with it. Never call a language useless.

Of course usefulness depends on individual circumstances but I think we can safely make generalizations that for the vast majority of people, English is far more useful than Zuni.

But I would think most people wouldn't want to learn the language of a former oppressing power.

They don't. And this is killing the relationship between the Hungarians and their neighbours. A dialogue needs to exist otherwise there will only be hatred on both sides. And there hasn't been a conflict between Hungarians and their neighbours since WWII. Besides my grandfather and his cousins no one remembers the Hungarians.

Being a localist and cosmopolitan.

I'm not both on one and the same subject. When it comes to technology, politics or inter-human relations I'm cosmopolitan. But I'm local about culture and history. I try to balance both.

I happen to love Esperanto. It's a fun language, and I use it daily, but I speak it not as often as I'd like (about once a month and the monthly Esperanto meeting)I read daily in Esperanto and I'm presently reading "La dormanto vekiĝas" in Esperanto.I also know Spanish, Cherokee and Yoruba, although my Yoruba isn't as good as it used to be.Aber mein Deutsch ist erbärmlich.Myös pidän suomeksi.